Balkan Breakthrough , livre ebook

BALKAN BREAKTHROUGH

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BATTLES Spencer C. Tucker, editor

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2010 by Richard C. Hall
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hall, Richard C. (Richard Cooper), [date]
Balkan breakthrough : the Battle of Dobro Pole 1918 / Richard C. Hall.
p. cm. - (Twentieth-century battles)
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35452-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Dobro Pole, Battle of, Serbia, 1918. 2. World War, 1914-1918-Campaigns-Serbia. I. Title.
D562.D63H35 2010 940.4 37-dc22
2009031095
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11 10
Contents
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Note on Transliteration
1 Balkan Politics
2 Balkan Wars
3 The Establishment of the Macedonian Front
4 Development of the Macedonian Front
5 The Lull
6 The Erosion of the Bulgarian Army
7 Breakthrough
8 Collapse
9 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Maps
1. Balkan Peninsula, 1878
2. Balkan Peninsula, 1913
3. Central Powers Attack on Serbia, 1915
4. 1916 Battles
5. Dobro Pole, 1918
6. Bulgarian Retreat, 1918
Acknowledgments
This book is result of work that began in the library of the Air War College. I am grateful for all the assistance the staff there gave me. Also, the help of Vasil Zagarov at Bibliotelescope in Sofia was critical to the completion of the study. My colleagues at Georgia Southwestern State University were supportive and helpful. And as ever, my wife, Audrey, gave me the sympathy and encouragement to pursue my goals.
Introduction
The mountainous southeastern corner of Europe is bordered on three sides by substantial bodies of water. The Adriatic Sea in the west, the Black Sea in the east, and the Aegean or White Sea in the south form this region into the peninsula. This entire region is often called the Balkan Peninsula, after the Turkish name for the central mountain range in Bulgaria. Mountains throughout much of the region hinder advancement overland. River valleys offer the main means of access into the hinterland. Chief among these is the Danube, which empties into the Black Sea. In the west, a high mountain chain impedes access from the Adriatic. In the south, several rivers break through the mountains and afford a connection to the interior. These include the Vardar and the Struma, which cut through the rocky mountain ridges of southeastern Europe. In several locations these rivers pass through narrow defiles, with only limited level land on one or both sides of the river. The Vardar, combined with the Morava River flowing to the north, offers a relatively easy passage between the Aegean and the Danube. Several cities on the Balkan periphery provide commercial access into the interior. On the Adriatic these include Dubrovnik (It: Ragusa) and Split (It: Spaleto). On the Black Sea these commercial outlets are Burgas and Varna in Bulgaria and Constan a in Romania. The largest and most important of these port cities is located in the south on an arm of the Aegean Sea. This is Salonika (Eng), Thessaloniki (Gk), Solun (Bg). Here a cosmopolitan population and an active economy combine to form one of the most important urban areas in southeastern Europe. 1 This port was the major maritime access point for much of the central Balkan Peninsula, including the large mixed ethnic region of Macedonia. One railroad line linked Salonika with Athens to the south and Constantinople to the east. Another extended up into Macedonia, connecting Salonika with the main city of central Macedonia, Skopie, and then on up to the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
The term Balkan has come to be associated with obscure and complex conflict in southeastern Europe. Often such conflicts lack resolution. This was not always the case. The establishment of Ottoman Turkish rule by the mid fifteenth century began a relatively peaceful era in the region. The introduction of the western European concept of nationalism into southeastern Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, brought about a series of conflicts caused by the efforts of the inhabitants of southeastern Europe, also known as the Balkan Peninsula or simply as the Balkans, to emulate the western Europeans and establish nationalist states. In these conflicts, the peoples of this region initially directed their political and military efforts primarily against the Ottoman Empire. As these efforts achieved some success in throwing off Ottoman rule and establishing national states, the Balkan peoples increasingly came into conflict among themselves over Ottoman spoils. The inherent instability caused by these conflicts inevitably attracted the attention of the Great European Powers. These included Austria (Austria-Hungary after the Ausgleich of 1867), France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia. Especially interested in these issues were the two Great Powers most proximate to this region, Austria-Hungary and Russia. At Berlin in 1878, the Great Powers sought to impose an overall settlement on the region that would maintain their interests. In their efforts to preserve the Berlin settlement, they were only partly successful. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the settlement was coming undone.
The consequence of the Great Powers inability to preserve stability in Southeastern Europe was a prolonged conflict beginning in 1912. At first the Balkan states attempted to realize their nationalist objects by the final expulsion of Ottoman authority from Europe in the First Balkan War. Before this was achieved, the Balkan states fell to fighting among themselves over the Ottoman legacy in the Second Balkan War. The enhanced status of the Bulgarians after the First Balkan War antagonized all of their Balkan neighbors and led to the Second Balkan War and the defeat of Bulgaria. The ensuing Treaty of Bucharest failed to impose a final settlement on the region. The defeated Bulgarians were vengeful. They sought an opportunity to attain the nationalist goals denied them by their former allies. The triumphant Greeks and Serbs were not sated. They wanted additional nationalist goals. In the case of the Greeks, these largely were at the expense of the Ottomans. In the case of the Serbs, these were in Austria-Hungary.
This study focuses on the continuation of this struggle during the First World War mainly from the Bulgarian perspective. In this struggle they sought to establish a large national state corresponding to perceived ethnic and historic frontiers. For Bulgaria, the renewed fighting in Southeastern Europe during the First World War represented an opportunity to redress the verdict of Bucharest. Bulgaria s eventual entry into the war on the side of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the erstwhile Ottoman enemy was based purely on self interest. Unlike the militaries of the other Central Powers, Bulgarian soldiers did not fight on fronts away from their frontiers. Bulgarian soldiers fought only on the Macedonian Front in the south, often referred to in Bulgarian sources as the Southern Front, and the Dobrudzha Front in Romania. In both of these regions they fought only for Bulgarian national interests. The commander in chief of the Bulgarian army, General Nikola Zhekov, emphasized this to the chief of the German General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, soon after Bulgaria s entry in the war in 1915, when the Bulgarians found themselves fighting not only the Serbs, but to their great surprise the British and French: We have committed our entire existence to this war, we have engaged in a bloody war and have sustained enormous losses. 2 The Bulgarians urged the elimination of the Macedonian Front from its inception. To their immense frustration, however, the Germans preferred to maintain it in order to concentrate Entente resources and manpower in a location remote from the decisive theaters of the war. Bulgarian military leaders warned that the Macedonian Front could become a potential problem. An Entente offensive in the summer and fall of 1916, which brought French and Serbian troops as far as Bitola, gave substance to the Bulgarian concerns. Their alarm became even more pronounced at the end of 1917 as German troops and equipment shifted to the Western Front for the great roll of the dice, and as the material and morale of the Bulgarian army deteriorated.
When Bulgaria entered the war, its material situation was bad. The Balkan Wars had already exhausted the country. The Bulgarians depended upon their German allies to provide them with most of their war equipment. Their expectations were never realized. The Germans could not meet their own demands. Nevertheless the Germans drew heavily upon Bulgaria s food resources. As a result, by 1917 morale in the ill-equipped and hungry Bulgarian army plummeted. The situation grew even wors